Dear Queenie,

My husband and I have been married for more than 20 years and we have 2 children together, plus 2 each from our previous marriages. We all get along very well and the children are all grown up now and also doing well except for my husband’s daughter.

She never got married, but she has two children from 2 different fathers and neither of the fathers pays her child support. My husband sends her money every month to pay her rent and utility bills and help buy groceries and he tries to hide this from me because he knows I object to it because she has a good job and gets a good salary. Even so, she is always asking us for financial help because she buys herself and her children lots of fancy toys and expensive clothes.

I keep telling my husband that his daughter will never learn how to manage her money better if Daddy keeps paying for things, but he just keeps sending her money.

Queenie, my husband and I would like to retire, but we don’t have enough savings. What do you suggest?—Fed-up stepmother

Dear Stepmother,

As usual, I suggest professional counselling for you and your husband – so he can learn a better way to help his daughter and you can figure out a better way to cope with this situation.

Dear Queenie,

My first husband and I have a daughter who is now in primary school. We got divorced when she was less than a year old and he moved to another island. Since then he has had no contact with either of us.

I got married a couple of years ago and he has been a good father to her, and now we have a baby boy. My daughter loves her stepfather and her little brother, but she is curious about her own father and sometimes she asks me about him.

Queenie, I don’t want to tell her that her father just isn’t interested in her, but what should I tell her?—Worried Mother

Dear Mother,

Just tell her that her father is very busy and probably too busy to have any time for her, and remind her that she has a loving (step)father.

When she gets older, she probably will be able to use a computer to find her biological father on the Internet and if she does, I hope she is not disappointed by what she learns about him.

Dear Queenie,

My brother’s girlfriend, who is a lot younger than us, is all the time on the phone calling or texting our mother. My brother has been dating her for a while, but he says he isn’t even thinking about asking her to marry him.

Queenie, is what she is doing normal?—Worried sister

Dear Sister,

Your brother’s girlfriend may need a “mother figure” because her own mother is out of the picture for some reason. Or she may think this is a way to get closer to your brother. Whatever the reason, it is up to your mother to cope with her.

Dear Queenie,

My son and his family moved in with us (me and his father) when my son lost his job. My problem is the way my daughter-in-law spoils their 8-year-old daughter, my granddaughter.

The girl doesn’t even try to keep her room neat and clean and uses very bad language when I try to tell her to do better. When I or my son (her father) scold the little girl or try to show her how to do better, my daughter-in-law gets mad at us, but not at her for whatever she has done wrong.

Queenie, how do we get my daughter-in-law to be a better mother?—Fed-up grandmother

Dear Grandmother,

Your granddaughter will grow up without many friends, if any at all, and if she uses bad language she surely must get in trouble at school, but if she does better there she apparently does not carry the lesson home.

Professional parental counselling, if you can persuade her to go for it, might make more of an impression on your daughter-in-law than you or her husband have been able to do. Meanwhile, for the child’s sake keep trying.